Alvin Ailey II

I wasn't sure where to put this but I guess if this is the wrong place it will be moved. Anyway I saw Alvin Ailey II tonight. It was really good I thoroughly enjoyed it. There were a few mistakes however, in one dance a dancer kicked another, one guy's thong dance belt was showing and in the last number a girl's skirt came undone. She was able to go offstage at one point and then a spool of thread rolled onto the stage in the wing area. Later one of the crew picked it up but I think they should have left it there, it wasn't bothering anyone and besides that sort of ruins the "illusion" of the production. But really the mistakes were minimal and didn't take away too much from the overall performance. I really enjoyed the style of dance. I assume that it would be some sort of modern/jazz style by the type of movements and the music. It was also interesting because the dancers were mostly barefoot. I would encourage anyone to go to see one of their performances.

P.S. I'm not sure if Alvin Ailey is considered a "ballet" company or not so feel free to delete.

I also saw Alvin Ailey 2 and was pretty amazed. They did an excellent job throughout the performance. There were substitutes that did not do as great of a job as I had anticipated...but they were subs!

Saw Ailey II in Park City, UT, on Saturday (the 21st). They did brief excerpts from a number of Ailey warhorses, which is a great way for them to train and great for the audiences in the boondocks. Luckily, they also did a Nathan Trice piece, which was a breath of fresh air. I thought the company was better suited technically and heighth-wise to the Trice than the Ailey. They do have a couple women that look capture the movement style of the Ailey repertory nicely, not sure what their names are because there were a lot of substitutions. But in general, the men and some of the women danced as though they'd just memorized the steps. A lot of them also seemed to be lacking in ballet technique. It was like watching a lot of well-trained jazz dancers. Their heighth, or lack of, was also curious in that most were shorter than I'm used to seeing with Ailey dancers and the line quality didn't seem to be best for the Ailey repertoire. Despite all that, it was still worth seeing. I'd bet a couple of their women- both fairly short in height though--have a nice future.